MORRISON: Look. Louie. I understand your temptation to plunge headlong
into the worst-case scenario but we really don't know what we're
dealing with here. Every case is different. There are countless variables
we need to take into consideration. We have a lot of data to analyze
before we want to draw any conclusions, dire or otherwise.

MORRISON: Okay. The lab was admittedly still pretty hot
when I got down there. But we got some readings and we expect it to be
cool enough tomorrow to try a dry run of the experiment to get a
hands-on physical feel for what happened. I'm gonna need to go through it
with you step by step so that I can re-enact it exactly, okay?

PHYSICIST 2: I heard a story once about Slotin while he was assigned
out at Oak Ridge. Apparently they were running some sort of assembly at
the bottom of this large tank of water that was absorbing the
radiation. Well, Slotin wanted to adjust or calibrate something on the assembly,
and he asked the supervising physicist to drain the tank so he could
get at it. Well, this was impossible, apparently: it would take at least
48 hours to shut down the reactor, drain the tank and allow the
radiation to cool to a safe level. So Slotin comes back a few hours later,
strips to his skivvies, puts on some swimming goggles, and dives to
the bottom of the tank, makes his calibrations under water.

PHYSICIST 1: And what about the rumor I heard that Slotin fought with
the Republicans against Franco back in '37? Or that he flew with the
RAF in '38 when he was in London?

PHYSICIST 2: I think it's safe to speculate that the originator of
those rumors was Dr. Slotin himself.

SLOTIN: I never said I fought with the Republicans. I said I met some. I was on a walking tour of the Basque country.

MORISSON: Gentlemen. Do you think perhaps we could proceed with
reviewing the critical assembly?

PHYSICIST 2: Of course, the critical assembly... well, what about
design re-evaluations? I mean, from what I've seen from the schematics,
merely by fixing the top shell in a stationary
position and then manipulating the bottom shell instead, gravity itself
would have provided some measure of a failsafe, with the assembly
falling apart instead of together.

(Phil looks over at Louis. Louis merely shrugs.)

MORRISON: Be all that as it may, gentlemen, I believe our purpose here
is to more accurately assess the circumstances as they happened-- for
whatever reasons-- so that we may more accurately estimate the dosages
received by the eight men present.

BETTS: Let me second that. I see no point in making Lou Slotin some
kind of scapegoat here. Please proceed, Phil.

MORRISON: Thank you, Colonel. The shells Louie was using are still a
bit hot from the accident, so I had the engineering guys mock up some
similar ones out of aluminum--

MORRISON: Slotin then removed the wooden blocks. At this point he
picked up an standard flat head screwdriver--

PHYSICSIST 2: A screwdriver?

SLOTIN: Standard flat head.

MORRISON: In his right hand while still holding the top shell in his
left. He brought the top shell back to the apparatus, this time resting
its left edge on the rim of the bottom shell itself, and then lowering
the right edge to balance on the upturned edge of the screwdriver.